


The Wake

by mazily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, past Lando Calrissian/Han Solo/Leia Organa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8480662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: If Han were here--
But he's not.





	

Boots. The swish of leather, a familiar swagger.

Leia wakes. Heart punching against her ribs, blaster from beneath the spare pillow already in hand. She blinks her vision back into focus. Swings her legs over the side of the bed. There's a creak, a shadow crossing her quarters, and the floor is cold against her bare feet. She stands. Blaster ready to shoot.

“General,” Lando says. His outline in her doorway. Arms raised. Probably smiling, the son of a bantha.

“Lando,” Leia says. Her hands steady. Aim true. “Don't think I won't shoot you.”

"Never," Lando says. 

It's all Leia can do to keep upright. Knees locked, head high: muscle memory from every lesson her mother ever taught her. Her finger twitches. She holds her breath for a second, exhales too loudly. Puts her blaster back down on the nightstand, afraid she'll actually pull the trigger (muscle memory and something dark beneath her skin; anger and nighttime and everything bearing down on her all at once).

Lando swaggers. He swaggers like they're still on the Falcon, high on victory and righteousness and love. He swaggers like it's the beginning of their story and not the end. He swaggers into her bedroom so deep into the night it's practically morning, and it's--

A flare of grief, of confusion, a light going out inside her--

"Leia," Lando says. Repeats, Leia thinks. She shakes her head. Tries to clear her thoughts. She clenches her fists so tightly her forearms hurt. Tension climbing up through her elbow, reaching her shoulders, her neck. Skin flushing hot and red to match her mood.

"You're late," she says.

They stare at each other from opposite ends of the room, listen to the empty space where Han would've strode in full of fire and bluster, threatening Lando's manhood. Blaster in one hand and a bottle of something dangerous in the other.

“We didn't have his body," Leia says. "So I burned all of his belongings instead.”

Lando's body bends in on itself like the grief just punched him in the stomach. He shakes. Head to toe and back again; like the synapses in his nerves need the external power to force the news to travel through his body.

He crosses the rest of the way into the room. Wraps his arms around her. “That idiot,” he says, “I told him to leave the hero crap to you and Luke, let the pros take care of saving the galaxy.” An old joke. Leia doesn't laugh. Doesn't cry. She leans into his hug, rests her head against his chest and listens to him breathe.

“I asked him to,” she says. Her mouth pressed against him, words mumbled and probably unintelligible, but she still has to try to explain. How it's her fault, how the last time she sent him to his death it finally took, how she'd do it all again every single--

Lando kisses the top of her head. Ignores the way her body shakes apart.

*

She swallows her first drink in one go. The last of Han's Corellian brandy, the good stuff that fell off the back of a freighter on their first anniversary. Slides her glass across the table. Lando refills it silently, without question. Passes it back to her with two cards. "Han's," he says. "I guess I'm finally getting around to returning them."

Leia studies the cards, feels the worn edges with her fingers. All these years, she thought Han was lying to her about them. All those--she snorts. Laughs. Wipes her nose against her sleeve. "He insisted these were stolen, that he wasn't cheating, and I never believed him." She moves to slide them into her pocket, only remembering that she's in her night clothes when her fingers slip against silk.

"I'd be more than happy to keep holding them for you," Lando says. Smirking.

Leia palms the cards. Closes her fist around them and glares. "Or we can burn them," she says. She drops them. They don't make a sound when they land.

She spills a couple of fingers into Lando's glass. Keeps the bottle for herself, taking one long draw after another until it's finally empty. Her eyes feel hot. The table is sticky near her elbow; she licks her finger, wipes the spot clean.

Lando pulls the bottle toward him. Pushes it on its side and begins spinning it; hand moving over the glass, over and over and over. Leia can't look away. Can't focus. Lando laughs. The bottle stops spinning, the mouth facing Leia. The lights are too bright; the room keeps getting smaller. "Truth or a lie, General," Lando says.

"I'm pretty sure I never agreed to play," Leia says.

"I didn't think you ever got scared," Lando says. "I'm not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed."

"Fine," Leia says. Her nails are jagged. She picks at her cuticles. "I can't stand the taste of Malla. It tastes like engine oil smells." Malla leaves overwhelm her garden. Strangle the vegetables and odd flowers. Han looked so proud when he held out the scraggly plant he'd liberated from _some politician, doesn't matter who, wasn't even sure they'd survive transporting 'em to you._ (She knows Han watered them every other day. Rigged an artificial sun-source to nurse them back to life.)

She holds out her hand and touches the bottle. Lando reaches out to grasp her hand in his, to tangle their fingers and watch each other across the table.

“My turn,” he says.

“I haven't even spun yet,” Leia counters.

Lando turns the bottle so the mouth faces him. "There," he says. Daring her to argue; mouth set, eyes wide open. For a liar and a cheat, he (like Han, her mind supplies; she flushes at the thought, hates that she will probably never stop comparing people to Han) has an overdeveloped sense of chivalry. "Truth or a lie."

"Lando," Leia says. "You didn't guess-"

"I'm going to kiss you," he says.

She stands. The room wobbles, rights itself. "Lie," she says. "Anyway, you cheated, it doesn't count." Lando moves closer. She doesn't back away; her back straightens, her chin tilts up.

"Truth," he says. "And cheating's the only thing that counts."

And then she forces the lie. She kisses him.

*

Leia's bedroom has no window, no sunlight to tell her she needs to get up, get back to work. She blinks up at the ceiling. Listens for the echoes of morning drills on the other side of her wall; she thinks she canceled her alarm before toppling into bed, but everything past Lando's teeth against her lower lip, his hands tangled in her hair as he took out her braids (fingers gentle like he'd studied Han doing it, learned the way Han's fingers moved), is a blur.

Lando drools in his sleep; his head is heavy in the space her neck and shoulder meet, his breath a mix of mint and ale. He is wearing pants and boots. No shirt. His skin is warm, and she tries to will some of his heat into her bones. Lando yawns. His palm is damp against her bare skin, and she squirms as he pushes her nightgown aside for better access to her body.

"Tickles," she says. Her mouth is dry. She runs her tongue against the front of her teeth. Her entire body feels stiff, old. Like she's spent a few too many days training herself into the ground. Trying to prepare herself for--

Lando bites down against her shoulder. Just hard enough to sting. Leia sighs into it, shifts until her neck's at a better angle. "That more to your liking, General?" Lando asks. 

She hums. Relaxes her body, forces herself to go limp from toes to ears as she rolls onto her front. Reaches beneath the bed and pulls out the box she and Han kept under every bed they'd ever shared (the box Lando helped fill, once upon a time). Tries to roll back with it in her hands. Lando holds her down against the bed. Breath heavy and teeth bruising her skin.

"Let me," she says. "I have--"

Lando pulls back almost too quickly. Fast enough to cause her a moment of dizziness (sometimes her will is too large for her body, and it attaches itself to her words, her actions, pushing out into the person in front of her). Leia swallows and sits up. Back pressed against the headboard and legs crossed in front of her; box in her too-tight grip as she presses her thumb to the locking mechanism.

"Hey," Lando says.

He places his hand over hers. The box opens beneath their palms, and he pulls out Han's cuffs. Leia reaches out--the metal is cold under her fingers, almost vibrating--and offers Lando her wrists. A concession, maybe, or penance: she'll let him fuck her like Han liked to be fucked. Tie her up like Han liked to be tied up.

"Just be careful," Leia says. "I'm not as flexible as Han used to be."

"You're kidding yourself if you think either of us was ever as flexible as Han," Lando says. He's careful with the cuffs, kissing the thin skin above her pulse before clasping them around her wrists. Licking her fingers and kissing her palms when her arms are finally secured to the headboard.

She shakes. Her blood feels too hot and her muscles vibrate and twitch under her skin. Lando mouths his way up her right arm. Nuzzles at the place where her arm and shoulder meet. Leia tries to shift away -- "that tickles," she says, twisting her body -- but Lando doesn't stop until she relaxes. Sudden and full-bodied and liquid.

"Good," Lando says. His mouth at her shoulder, teeth snapping. Mustache scratching. She tries to reach for him, to hold him in place -- "more," she says, biting her lip before she can beg -- and the cuffs rattle. Her shoulder pulls, cracks like an early morning yawn. 

He bites his way across her sternum. Marking her, sucking bruises so deep she feels them inside her bones. A flash of memory: Han's chest mottled with purple and green, her mouth and Lando's mouth criss-crossing their way across his body. Occasionally stopping to kiss, open mouthed and wet and furious. Leia moans. Flushes all over.

"Hey," Lando says. He sounds far away. Under layers of ice, cold weather gear.

"General," he says, "Leia, Princess, you-"

Leia nods. Opens her mouth to answer, to tell him _more, please continue_ , but all that comes out is "Han." Her voice rough. Her throat sore. 

Lando scrambles to uncuff her. Wraps her in his arms, hands running up and down her spine. "Shh," he says. Over and over and over. Leia kisses his chest, shoulder neck. Presses her open mouth against his skin wherever she can reach.

"Sorry," she says.

"No," he says, "Don't--" 

Leia presses a finger to his mouth. Uses both hands to trace the planes of his face, to touch and touch and touch, familiar and foreign at once. There's a new scar near his mouth. New lines near his eyes. Leia wraps her hands around his ears and pulls him down to kiss her. 

It's soft at first. Gentle. Lando's careful with her, mouth barely whispering against hers. One kiss and then another, three and four until Leia stops counting, unable to differentiate between one kiss and the next. She scrapes her teeth against his lower lip. He hisses. Opens his mouth. It's teeth and tongues and his body heavy on top of hers. Fingers pressing bruises into her skin wherever he touches her. 

She bends her knees. Relaxes her body and lets Lando feel it, traces her foot against the back of his leg. He smiles against her mouth: cocky and too sure of himself. Leia pulls her head back, tries to steady her breathing. Lando tosses the cuffs off the bed. Leans in for another kiss.

Leia turns her head away--his lips brush across her cheek, her eye, her ear--and plants her feet against the bed. Lando's face down and spitting against the pillow when she shifts her body. Pushes. Flips Lando onto his back and climbs up to straddle him.

He's hard. Eyes glazed and unfocused. Leia wraps her hands around his wrists and presses them against the bed. Slides down onto him and waits. One second, two, daring him to cant his hips up. To push himself deeper inside her. She can sense it when he finally gives in, feel it tingling somewhere inside her head, and she slams down against him. Bruising, hard, bottoming out: she groans, burns, fucks him deep into the day.

*

Lando plays with her hair. Braids strands of it and combs out others, fingers never still against her scalp.

Leia's breath is uneven, shallow, slowly returning to normal; she's sweaty and sex-sticky, sore and half asleep. She presses a kiss to Lando's armpit. Her comlink chirps, and she reaches out to answer it. Pushes herself into a sitting position, pulling the blanket up over her lap. "This is General Organa," she says. Her arms are sore. Her stomach. Lando tries to curl into her lap, and she shoves at his shoulders. His chest.

"This is Technician Mohebbi," the voice on the other end of her comlink says. _Sounds nervous_ , Lando mouths. He takes her hand in his. Presses his mouth to her palm. _Probably has a crush._ "Uh, this is your reminder that the afternoon briefing today was pushed forward an hour. Uh, sir. General."

She activates her comlink. "Thank you, Mohebbi," she says, "Please let Admiral Statura know I'm just finishing up a meeting with an old contact, and I'm not sure when we'll be done. He can start the briefing without me."

Lando snorts. Rolls over so his head is fully in her lap, his face pressed against her stomach. Laughing far too hard at nothing that Leia can understand. She slaps the back of his head. "Stop that," she says. He laughs harder.

"Oh god," he says. "An old con -- remember the time you and Han met me at that cantina on Q'Mara, and--"

"That pirate," Leia says. She curls her body over his. Laughs until she feels sick. 

When they both calm down--minutes or hours or days later--she's sitting in front of him, his legs pressed against her back. He braids her hair more formally. She'll need to shower, to clean between her legs and under her arms, wash the smell and sweat away until there's no evidence left that there's a woman hidden beneath the uniform. But now she feels too heavy to move, and Lando's fingers feel good against her scalp. Relaxing. His grip on her hair assured and just right, the slight pull as he twists her hair around itself comforting and familiar.

"They're building a new base on a small moon near the edge of the Galov sector," he says. A belated briefing. He pulls a little too hard, and Leia winces, eyes watering for a second. "I think a small squadron of X-Wings could take it down if you do it fast."

"How well guarded is it?" Leia asks. She's already planning the assault in her head. They've been in a holding pattern for far too long, and her pilots are getting restless: a cake walk might be what they need right now. 

"Minimal," Lando says. "I counted maybe a dozen TIE Fighters, all based on the moon itself." 

Leia hums. "And you'll be able to meet up with your contact from the Alliance?" she asks. 

Lando adds one last pin to her hair and lifts his hands -- it stays in place, and he smiles. "There," he says. He kisses the top of her head. Leia turns to face him. Pulls herself up on her knees so their heads are almost at the same height. "And you'll be able to meet up with your contact from the Alliance?" she asks. She reaches out. Tangles her fingers with his, hands pressed together in the empty space between their bodies. "We're dangerously low on medical supplies, and the refugees on-"

"Yes," Lando says. "The refugees will get their food, and you'll get your supplies. You gotta trust me, Princess."

She pulls his hand to her mouth. Presses a quick kiss to his knuckles. "I do," she says.

"Good," he says. He pulls her closer to him. She stumbles, knee catching on a blanket, and falls against him. She kisses his shoulder. Hands on his biceps, she straightens up and shuffles just far enough to look him in the eye.

"Right," she says. 

They watch each other. Close enough to feel him exhale, to watch his eyes dart over to the corner as his breath trips over itself. Han would draw his blaster at this point, save them all from awkward goodbyes. He'd pull it out from nowhere and threaten Lando's life, standing there naked as the day he was born until Lando raised his arms. His fingers casting shadows against Leia's skin. 

"You should get ready for your meeting," Lando says. 

"I should," Leia says. "The least I can do is attend my own meeting."

"No one blames you," Lando says.

Leia shakes her head, _no,_ because her soldiers risk their lives every day and it's her responsibility to make sure they're prepared. Her job to be there. She kisses Lando one more time (one last time; loss is a constant companion of war, after all). Forces her legs to move. Her torso, shoulders, arms, all of them creaking as she climbs out of the bed and stands. 

He whistles as she walks toward the washroom. _I love watching you go_ in Han's voice in her head. The bedlinens rustle and the bed shifts and squeaks. She doesn't turn back. She can feel it under her skin when he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Luna for the help and the motivation and the typo-kicking action.


End file.
